


A Long Road

by Twice_before_Friday



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s01e04 Cyberwoman, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 13:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21494734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twice_before_Friday/pseuds/Twice_before_Friday
Summary: The team has killed the cyberwoman, and Ianto has lost his entire world.Here's my take on what happened after the team took down Lisa.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 15
Kudos: 132





	A Long Road

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual, I am showing up a day late and a dollar short. 
> 
> But in case there is anyone out there besides me who is still yearning for some Torchwood drama from back when the whole gang was alive, here's some post-Cyberwoman angst for you!
> 
> Warning for attempted suicide, in case that's a trigger for you.
> 
> Torchwood belongs to the BBC, I'm just borrowing them for a bit.

There was so much blood.

  


Coating his hands - simultaneously sticky and slippery in a way that only blood can be - making it hard to keep a grip on his gun.

  


Seeping through the knees of his trousers where he knelt between the bodies, as the blood continued to flow from both Lisa and Annie, the separate pools coalescing, becoming one in much the same way Lisa’s brain and Annie’s body had.

  


He could feel it drying on his face, soaking through his socks to puddle in his shoes. He could taste the distinct copper tang and somehow knew that he would never be able to forget the cloying, oppressive scent that somehow felt like being smothered by a wet blanket.

  


Eventually, though, Ianto Jones stopped crying. Stopped rocking back and forth. Stopped thinking. He became still, eyes glazed over, so consumed with all of the blood and the heartbreaking loss that he wasn’t immediately aware of anything else that was happening around him. He didn’t hear the team slowly filter into the room as they finally broke their firing squad formation. He wasn’t aware of Tosh's silent tears or Gwen's wide-eyed shock. Didn’t hear Jack’s quiet but firm commands as to what needed to be done and by whom.

  


“Gwen, go grab a stretcher,” he said, “the bodies and anything that even looks like it could be cybertech goes directly to the incinerator.”

  


Gwen looked at him for a moment and opened her mouth to argue but nothing came out, so she snapped it shut again. She glanced over to Ianto and back at Jack, but eventually decided it was best to follow orders this time. If she was honest with herself, she wasn’t quite ready to deal with all that had happened and this would give her a few minutes alone to process. Jack just stared at her with his arms crossed until she slowly turned and walked out of the room.

  


Turning to Tosh, he continued, “I want you run every diagnostic you can think of to make sure there are no alien programs running down here, draining power or accessing information. Nothing lurking in the background, no Trojan horses hiding in any of our systems.”

  


Tosh gave a brief nod and went directly to the main console to start combing through any systems that Ianto may have accessed, discretely wiping tears off her face as she walked over.

  


Finally Jack turned to Owen, who was standing off to the side, arms crossed and jaw locked, looking a peculiar combination of guilty and royally pissed off. Considering his past with Katie as well as the fact that he had helped scavenge Torchwood One after the battle of Canary Wharf and had seen first-hand the destruction left behind, Jack assumed he was feeling that and more.

  


“Give Ianto a once over,” he said once Owen looked his way. “Make sure he’s fit to be dealt with then put him in a cell for the time being. We’ll need your help to get this sorted.”

  


They held eye contact momentarily, Owen cocking an eyebrow to silently ask if that meant 'fit to be executed', but Jack’s expression gave nothing away. Owen looked away first, taking a beat to tamp down his anger, while Jack went over to the cyber-conversion unit and started to disassemble it piece by piece.

  


Owen took a wide berth to walk around Lisa – he wasn’t chancing anything; he knew exactly what those metal bastards were capable of – and slowly came to a halt about six feet in front of Ianto.

  


“Alright teaboy, let’s get this over with, yeah?”

  


It was said in Owen’s usual caustic fashion, but there was a hint of sympathy buried deep down, too. He knew exactly how it felt to lose the love of your life to an alien, after all. He shoved his gun into the back of his waistband and started to move closer to Ianto but froze mid-step about halfway there.

  


Ianto was gradually regaining awareness of his surroundings. He'd lost the glassy-eyed stare and slowly looked up at Owen, and Owen had not a single doubt in his mind about what Ianto was about to do. How Ianto managed to keep a cyberman hidden for months was beyond Owen. The pain etched in every line and tear track on his face, his rigid posture, pulled taut with tension, everything was broadcasting his intentions so loudly right now, that Owen briefly wondered how Ianto had ever hid anything from them at all.

  


Owen raised his hands in front of him, palms out, reassuring, and tried to keep his voice calm and level. “Mate, I need you to give me your gun now, alright?”

  


At the abrupt change in tone, Jack and Tosh both snapped their heads up to see what was happening, Jack automatically reaching for his Webley, but otherwise staying still, avoiding any sudden movements.

  


Ianto was in the process of raising his gun to his head, pressing the barrel lightly to his temple, grip surprisingly sure considering the amount of blood coating his hands and the grip of the pistol.

  


“Ianto,” Owen continued, inching his way closer, “you don’t really want to do this. I know it feels like the bottom just dropped out, but we can get through this. Please, mate. Just put the gun down.”

  


While Owen was trying to talk Ianto down, Jack was quietly making his way around the conversion unit, subtly moving behind Ianto while he was focused on Owen.

  


“I’m so sorry,” Ianto whispered, “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  


*************

  


Everything happened very quickly after that. Tosh's cry of “Ianto, no!” and Ianto's whispered apologies were obscured by the rush of Jack and Owen slamming into Ianto from opposite sides. Jack launched himself into Ianto's back, throwing them both forward to the ground as Owen grabbed Ianto’s arm, pulling the gun out to the side, right as Ianto pulled the trigger. Tosh's scream and the gag-inducing popping sound of Ianto's shoulder dislocating were nearly drown out by the sound of the shot as it echoed through the room.

  


Gwen came running in at the sound of the commotion, gun drawn, but faltered in the doorway at the tableau in front of her. Tosh stood frozen at the console, hands over her mouth, while Owen and Jack were forming some strange dogpile over a sobbing Ianto. She lowered her weapon and took a shaky breath as she realized she was not walking into another cyberman attack.

  


“Owen! Sedative, now!” Jack shouted as he continued to pin Ianto to the ground, but Ianto wasn't struggling and was just repeating a trembling “I’m sorry. Oh my God, I’m so sorry”. Owen noticed the tray of syringes and medications at the side of the room, presumably what Ianto had been using to keep Lisa comfortable, and quickly grabbed a dose of one of the sedatives and hurried back to Ianto, unceremoniously emptying the contents into Ianto's neck.

  


After a tense few seconds, Ianto's broken pleas for forgiveness stopped as he slumped unconscious and the rest of the team let out a collective breath.

  


“Fuck,” Owen breathed out.

  


“Gwen, do you have that stretcher with you?” Jack asked, as he pushed himself off of the floor.

  


“Um, yeah,” she replied, and went to grab the stretcher she'd abandoned just down the hall when she had heard the shot ring out.

  


Without a word, Tosh and Gwen rolled the stretcher over and held it still as Jack and Owen rolled Ianto onto his back and gently lifted him onto the trolley.

  


“Change of plan, kids,” Jack said. “Owen, take Ianto to the med bay. Check him over and set his shoulder. Keep him sedated and restrained but stay with him until I get there. Gwen, Tosh and I will take care of everything down here.”

  


Owen wheeled Ianto out of the room without a word, but Jack noticed the tremor in his hands and the tears in his eyes and made a mental note to check on him as soon as possible.

  


*************

  


Jack walked over to Tosh, placed a hand on her shoulder and gently pulled her in to a warm hug. She let herself be wrapped in his arms while she silently wept, the tension of the last few hours finally coming to a head. He kept her snug in his embrace as he looked over to Gwen.

  


“I’m going to need your help getting everything to the incinerator. Are you up for it?” he asked. “As soon as everything is in, you can head home to Rhys and take tomorrow off.”

  


“That’s fine, Jack,” she said, looking up at him with her big, watery eyes, “but what’s going to happen with Ianto?”

  


“Honestly? I’m not sure yet. I need to have a discussion with him when he wakes up.”

  


“But you’re not actually going to execute him, are you Jack?” Gwen asked.

  


Tosh had regained her composure by this point and backed away from Jack with a small smile as a thank-you for the comfort but was clearly interested in the answer.

  


“How about we get everything sorted down here before we worry about any of that?” Jack replied, avoiding answering the question, in classic Captain Jack Harkness style.

  


Both Tosh and Gwen seemed like they wanted to say more, but Jack’s look left no question that the conversation was over.

  


Tosh went back to the console to continue working on purging the system, alternating between the unit in Lisa's room and a secondary unit down the corridor. Gwen and Jack worked on dismantling the conversion unit and took everything, including the bodies of Lisa and Annie, to the incinerator. Once all of the large pieces were taken care of, Jack told Gwen to call it a night.

  


“Goodnight Gwen,” he said. “Let Rhys take care of you. After a night like this, it’s more important than ever to keep hold of what you have.”

  


“Thank you for saving my life, Jack,” she whispered. He sent her home with a hug and a promise that he wouldn’t do anything rash.

  


Jack continued emptying out the last of the room, making multiple trips to the incinerator, erring on the side of caution as he burned anything that was metal or tech, as Tosh finished with the computers.

  


“It looks like we’re fine here, Jack,” Tosh said. “He was using an air gapped system that wasn’t connected to Mainframe. We can incinerate this console just to be sure, but I'm confident we’re safe.”

  


“Great work, Tosh. Head home and I’ll take care of the last of this. Take the day off tomorrow. I’ll call if anything comes up.”

  


“Jack,” Tosh said softly, looking down at her clasped hands, “he was trying to save someone he loved. I don’t think he meant any harm.” Tosh knew all too well what a person could do when a loved one was threatened. She spent time in a Unit prison for doing something similar.

  


“I know Tosh. But even if we ignore protocol for dealing with his betrayal, he just tried to kill himself,” Jack looked at her and sighed. “I don’t know if this has a happy ending.”

  


Jack looked so hurt that Tosh couldn’t push any further. She gave his hand a quick squeeze as she passed him and headed home for the night.

  


Jack took a quick look around at the last of the equipment and all of the blood and decided that after the console was burned, the rest could wait until tomorrow. All the most dangerous components had been incinerated and he had more important things to deal with at the moment. After a final trip to the incinerator, he closed and locked the door behind him and headed up to the med bay.

  


*************

  


Owen had wheeled Ianto up to the main hub but decided against trying to maneuver down the steps into the med bay. Instead, he used the space in front of the ratty old sofa to park the stretcher, then went down to grab the supplies he'd need and brought everything up on a tray. First order of business was attaching one wrist and both ankle restraints to keep Ianto from hurting himself when he finally woke up. The sedatives should keep him out for 4 more hours at least, but Owen wasn’t going to take any chances.

  


He then proceeded to cut Ianto out of his suit so he could examine him for injuries. He almost felt bad about slicing up the suit – he knew that teaboy was meticulous about his clothing – but with the amount of blood saturating everything, there was no hope of salvation for any of it anyways. Ianto had, after all, been thrown forward directly into the still warm pool of blood when Jack tackled him. He left him in just his boxer-briefs, which seemed to be the only thing that wasn’t blood-soaked. 

  


Owen took a sponge and a basin of clean water and started by wiping Ianto down, head to toe. He had to change out the water four times, but eventually got the worst of it off, though he knew Ianto would still need a good shower when this was over. Owen himself was going to need a long hot shower soon too, since he had also been splattered quite badly in the process of taking Ianto down. But first, he had a patient to attend to.

  


Ianto's shoulder was obviously dislocated from Jack throwing him forward while Owen was yanking his arm sideways. It was visibly out of place and was already starting to bruise and swell. Owen would feel bad about it if the little twerp hadn’t just been trying to off himself. He figured a dislocated shoulder was small penance for everything that had happened. He moved Ianto's arm out, manipulated it into place, then pulled with a quick jerk to pop it back into the socket. He rested Ianto's arm back on his torso but chose to finish his examination before putting on the sling.

  


He used his fingers as well as the scanner to check for broken ribs (nothing broken, but a few cracked ones, likely from when Lisa tossed him across the room like a rag doll) and internal injuries (thankfully none of those either). He stitched up a few gashes that Ianto had received at some point during the course of the night, and then put a sling on his arm and wrapped it around his torso to keep the arm completely immobilized. He also made a mental note to keep an eye on the kid’s eating habits (assuming he was still alive and part of the team going forward) because he was an unhealthy kind of thin that wasn’t usually noticeable underneath his well tailored suits

  


Once he was sure Ianto was as good as he could be, Owen cleaned all of the medical equipment away, draped a blanket over Ianto from the waist down, and sat down at his desk, letting out a huff while closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. He was caught somewhere between sympathy for the kid who had just lost his entire world, and anger because the wanker had almost destroyed the entire human race.

  


“What the fuck were you thinking Jones? You saw what they wanted to do. Christ, you were at Canary Wharf while it was happening! How could you hide one of those metal monsters here?”

  


He was quickly swinging far more to the anger end of his feelings as he thought about what could have happened if they hadn’t been there to stop Lisa in time. It easily could have been the end of the world. Ianto had snuck that thing in right under their noses, and lied to them every single day since.

  


“Maybe I should’ve just let you…”

  


But thinking of Ianto's face as he raised the gun to his head, the raw pain in his eyes, the litany of apologies, Owen couldn’t even finish his sentence. Ianto was clearly aware of what a colossal mistake he had made. And besides, Owen was a doctor. It was his duty to keep the kid alive and well. In the end, it would be Jack’s decision as to how Ianto would be paying for his sins, not Owen’s.

  


And so he waited, adrenaline-sick and antsy, unable to stay still. Anxiously fiddling with anything within reach, he chewed on his pen, squeezed the stress ball while doodling in the margins of his latest autopsy report, and started a paper clip chain that was abandoned half a box in. He walked over to the other workstations and aimlessly pushed around the items on the desks, turning coffee cups, gathering together pens and highlighters and sorting them first from light to dark and then from large to small. He was adjusting the height of one of the monitors when he saw Gwen leave without a backwards glance.

  


He threw himself down on the couch, knowing that Jack would be up soon. Less than half an hour later, Tosh came up and tentatively made her way over.

  


“Jack’s almost done, I think. He should be up soon,” she said shyly, “and he told me to head out for the night.”

  


She glanced at Ianto, looking so frail and young, and felt a twinge in her heart. He was right about them never asking about his life. They had taken him for granted and it almost ended in disaster.

  


“How is he?”

  


“Physically, he'll be alright. It’ll take a few weeks to heal and it’s going to hurt like hell, but he’ll get there. Mentally? I don’t know. He’s obviously a tough kid, but this might just be too much to come back from. If Jack decides to retcon him, it might be the kindest thing he could do,” he scrubbed his hands over his face and added in a near-whisper, “Maybe kinder than he deserves.”

  


“Owen,” Tosh scolded, “you don’t mean that.”

  


Owen sighed. “Tosh, I just don’t know.”

  


Tosh took one last look at Ianto then bid Owen goodnight and headed out the cog door.

  


Owen leaned his head back on the sofa and shut his eyes while he waited for Jack. He was exhausted. Everything that had happened with the Cyberman had been horrible and terrifying, of course, but really, that was just another day at Torchwood. What had really gotten to him was Ianto's suicide attempt. He had lost patients to that before and sure as hell wasn’t going to let it happen again, especially right in front of him. That hadn’t been some kind of cry for help; Ianto had actually pulled the trigger. If Owen had been a fraction of a second later in pulling his arm away… well, that didn’t bear dwelling on.

  


Shortly thereafter, he heard footsteps heading his way and looked up to find the Captain standing over Ianto. He looked as conflicted as Owen felt.

  


“He’ll likely start to come out of it within the next hour or so. He is 'fit to be dealt with', as you asked. However,” Owen paused and looked pointedly at Jack. “He is currently my patient, so you will **not** be executing him, at least not until he is no longer under my care. So. What’s the plan, then?”

  


Jack glared at Owen, using his 'Captain' look in an attempt to intimidate him into backing down, but Owen was having none of it. Any team medical care was within his purview and, just for the time being, Ianto's fate was in his hands, not the Captain’s.

  


Jack placed his hands on the side of the stretcher and dropped his head, shoulders slumping.

  


“Why does everyone think I’m going to kill him?”

  


“Well,” Owen snarked, “does ‘execute her or I’ll execute you both' sound familiar?”

  


Jack flinched.

  


“I was angry. I shouldn’t have said that. But Ianto and I will need to talk when he wakes up to decide where we go from here. Go home, Owen. I'll call if anything comes up tomorrow, or if he needs anything,” he held up a hand as Owen started to protest, “and I will not harm him in any way without your express permission, Dr. Harper.”

  


Owen remained looking at Jack for a moment, trying to suss out if that was the truth. Evidently, he believed him in the end, because he stood up and passed over a bottle of pills and a full syringe from a stash of items he had gathered on the table beside the couch.

  


“The tablets are pain killers. He can take up to two, every four hours at the most. You will not, under any circumstances, give him that bottle and allow him to choose his own doses. You will dole them out yourself. The syringe is a heavy sedative that will knock him out for at least 8 hours. Use it if he is a danger to himself. And if you have to use it, you **will** call me in immediately.”

  


He waited for Jack’s nod of understanding before continuing.

  


“If you’re going to be farther than arm's reach from him, keep the restraints on. Jack, he's vulnerable right now. Neither of us are trained to deal with his level of mental trauma. I don’t know what you’re planning on doing with him, but if it doesn’t end with a bullet to the brain or him being retconned back into nappies, he is going to need help. And we will be responsible for providing it.”

  


He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and continued giving instructions as he headed to the cog door.

  


“I will be back in 8 hours, whether you want me here or not. Like I said, he is my patient right now. I expect him to be alive and to know who he is when I get here. Is that understood?”

  


“Owen?” Jack said

  


Owen turned around, looking at Jack expectantly.

  


“Are you alright?” Jack asked softly. “I know that what happened down there – what _almost_ happened down there – was a lot. Are you going to be okay?”

  


Owen bristled at that. Jack knew that Owen’s response to things that scared him was to get angry. Anger he knew how to deal with. Fear, not so much.

  


“Nothing that copious amounts of alcohol and good shag won’t cure, so if you’ll excuse me…”

  


And with that, Owen was gone, and Jack was left alone with an unconscious Ianto as the echoes of the alarms faded into nothingness.

  


*************

  


Jack pulled a chair up beside Ianto and sat, waiting for him to wake up. It seemed so peaceful in the hub if he closed his eyes. The trickle of running water and low hum of the computer systems were the only sounds in the vast space; a tranquil change after all of the screaming and gunshots of the night. Looking around at the mess of papers and pizza boxes and blood, though, proved a painful reminder of the events that had so recently transpired, so he angled Ianto's stretcher to face away from the worst of it.

  


He waited patiently while Ianto's breathing picked up and he began wrenching his head in short jerks, whimpering and pulling at the restraints. Jack stood and started making shushing noises, softly running his hand up and down Ianto's forearm. It took some time for the sedative to finally wear off and for Ianto to groggily open his eyes. He seemed unfocused for a while, but Jack could tell exactly when Ianto came back to himself. There was a flash of horror, before Ianto could school his face into his usual butler's mask.

  


“Sir,” he said, while inconspicuously tugging on the restraints holding his good wrist and both ankles. He let out a gasp as he jostled his newly set shoulder.

  


“Please stay still,” Jack said quietly as he placed a hand on Ianto’s chest. “Your shoulder was hurt pretty bad back there.” A look of humiliation passed over Ianto’s face so quickly that Jack nearly missed it. “Ianto, we need to have a conversation, and until I know where your head is at, I’m going to keep you restrained. But I can prop you up a bit, if you’d like?”

  


Ianto clenched his jaw but gave a curt nod, so Jack raised the head of the stretcher, leaving Ianto in an almost-seated position. Ianto’s panting breaths made it clear that the slight movement had caused him a great deal of pain. Jack grabbed one of the bottles of water that Owen had left beside the couch along with the pain killers from his pocket and shook two tablets into his hand. He was debating the best way to have Ianto take the pills, since one of his hands was cuffed to the stretcher and the other was in a sling that was wrapped around his torso, so it took a moment to notice the sadness and resignation that had consumed Ianto’s features.

  


“Oh!” Jack exclaimed, “Ianto, no. They’re pain killers, not retcon, I swear. Owen prescribed them for the pain in your shoulder before he left.”

  


Ianto glanced around suspiciously but didn’t respond otherwise.

  


“Everyone is gone, Ianto. It's just you and me,” Jack answered Ianto's unasked question. “And I promise you that whatever the outcome of our conversation, anything that happens will be with your full knowledge. I won’t lie to you or trick you into anything. You have my word.”

  


Ianto's eyes flickered up for an instant at Jack's promise, but he was having trouble looking him in the eye. As the sedative wore off, the evening was coming back to him in vivid flashes. Finding Doctor Tanazaki's mangled body, the confrontation with Lisa and the rest of the team, Jack holding a gun to his head and later telling him to execute the love of his life, Myfawny attacking Lisa as the team physically dragged him away, Lisa lying dead on the floor while Annie spoke her memories, the barrage of bullets that ended everything, his own attempt to end what was left.

  


Suddenly it felt like there was a vice around his chest and he found himself hunched forward, gasping for breath in a room with no air, tears streaming down his face. It was all his fault; three dead bodies in the basement because of him and he failed the woman he loved. He had promised he was going to make it right, and now she was gone, and he had failed her, and Annie and Tanazki were innocent bystanders that were lying in pools of their own blood because of his stupidity and incompetence, and if Lisa wasn’t really Lisa anymore like Jack said, if that was true, then he almost unleashed hell on the world and he could have been responsible for the destruction of the human race, and then he tried to take the coward's way out and end it, instead of cleaning up his fucking mess. Everything was crashing down on him, black dots starting to cloud his vision until…

  


Jack’s lips were suddenly on his, one of Jack’s hands resting lightly over his heart, and the other tangled in the back of his hair, nails lightly scraping over his scalp. And just like that, Ianto had no thoughts at all.

  


Jack broke off the kiss when he felt Ianto shakily inhale, but remained with his forehead against Ianto’s, sharing his air.

  


“Ianto, you need to keep breathing. And you need to take these painkillers. Okay?”

  


Ianto pulled back and blinked up at him, making a strangled noise of agreement. Jack placed one tablet at a time into Ianto’s mouth, holding the bottle of water up to his lips in between, allowing Ianto to swallow the medication. After the water was re-capped and placed on the floor, Jack sat on the side of the stretcher and placed his hand on the back of Ianto’s neck, gently rubbing his thumb up and down the tender skin behind his ear.

  


Ianto wasn’t quite sure exactly how he felt. He hurt everywhere. He was devastated at the loss of his Lisa, but relieved that the whole nightmare was finally, _finally_, over. Which left him feeling so overwhelmingly guilty for feeling relieved that he thought he might be sick. He was so angry at Jack; for killing Lisa, for refusing to help, for holding a gun to his head and demanding he kill her. But deep down he knew Jack was right. Lisa, his beautiful and kind-hearted Lisa, would never have done the things that the Cyberwoman had done tonight. He may have had occasional doubts when he was caring for her, but tonight proved it to him. And if Jack hadn’t done what he’d done, there would be even more bodies piling up on Ianto’s conscience. He was sad, and lonely, and feeling like he deserved to feel that way for the rest of his life, however short it may be. But he liked that kiss. A lot. If he was honest with himself, and now was certainly the time for it, there had been a spark between him and Jack since the beginning and a part of him was curious to explore that attraction. And there was the guilt again, leaving him nauseous and ashamed. But Jack's hand on his neck was warm and comforting and he never wanted it to stop, yet at the same time he wanted to scream at him to get away.

  


They stayed still and silent while the painkillers kicked in, Jack continuing to rub Ianto's neck, Ianto studiously avoiding eye contact.

  


Jack was trying to decide where to start. He knew it might be best to get the 'sentencing' out of the way since Ianto was obviously waiting for it, but there were things he wanted to say first. Things he wanted to know.

  


“Ianto,” Jack said eventually, and immediately felt the tension thrumming through Ianto's body beneath his touch, shoulders tensing and awaiting the blow. “I want you to know that I am sorry. You were right about us. We took you for granted and let you disappear into the background, and we never should have let that happen. _I_ never should have let that happen. Maybe if we had included you more, let you be a part of the team, you would've felt comfortable asking for our help. And I’m sorry for what I said earlier, ordering you to execute her. I know there’s no excuse, but I need you to understand that I was terrified.”

  


Ianto’s eyes darted over to Jack at this admission, but Jack was now staring off into the middle distance, losing himself in a memory as he continued.

  


“I lost someone that day. At Canary Wharf. Someone special. And I’ve fought Cyberman and Daleks before. I know exactly what they are capable of,” he said darkly, “and having one here, in my base, well. It caught me by surprise. And I handled it poorly. So, I’m sorry for how I reacted.”

  


Jack gave himself a shake, leaving the memories in the past where they belonged, and turned to face Ianto.

  


“But I am not sorry for killing that machine,” he said firmly, gripping Ianto's neck a bit tighter as Ianto started to turn his head away in anger. “That was not Lisa, Ianto. Lisa died at Canary Wharf. What you brought here was a hostile alien that stole her face. And I think that maybe you already know that.”

  


“You could have tried!” Ianto shouted, yanking at his wrist restraint like he was trying to get a hand free to hit Jack again. “She was… she was special. She deserved better.”

  


Ianto was visibly deflating, anger leaving as fast as it came.

  


“I believe you,” Jack replied, loosening his grip and resuming the soothing stroking motion with his thumb. “And she did deserve better. No one deserved what happened at Canary Wharf.” _Except maybe Yvonne Hartman, _Jack thought. “But I promise you that I am telling you the truth when I say that there is no cure for conversion. Lisa was gone as soon as the first bit of Cybertech was implanted in her. And I know you may never be able to forgive me for what I did, but I hope that someday you will understand that there was no other choice.”

  


Ianto was already starting to believe that, but he was still too angry with Jack to let him know, so he stayed silent.

  


Jack pulled his hand back and moved to sit back down in the chair beside the stretcher, providing them both with some much-needed space.

  


“So,” Jack cleared his throat, “where do we go from here?”

  


“I think it’s fairly obvious, Sir. Torchwood regulations state that the penalty for treason is execution or retcon. My actions were most certainly treason. The decision as to which course of action is taken is entirely yours.” Ianto paused and swallowed hard. “Although if I can… I mean, if I have a say in it, which I know I don’t, I would rather not lose my memories of Lisa. She deserves to never be forgotten.”

  


“Do you want to die, Ianto?” Jack asked.

  


The bluntness of the question startled Ianto into finally looking at Jack.

  


“Because Torchwood Three doesn’t abide by One's rules. I decide what happens here,” Jack went on. “and I don’t want to execute you. But I need to know that you’re not just going to take matters into your own hands if I let you go. You’ve already tried to kill yourself tonight, is that going to happen again?”

  


A tidal wave of shame washed over Ianto, the weight of his actions crushing him and stealing his breath. He wanted to hide his face in his hands as the tears began again, but didn’t have the option, restrained as he was.

  


“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I just… I didn’t know what to do. She was gone and there was so much b-blood, and they all died because of me.”

  


Jack reached out and took Ianto’s good hand in his, providing silent support while he worked through his emotions.

  


“No,” he said after a few shuttering breaths, “I don’t want to die. Lisa would be furious if I did. But I don't know how to make this better. And I don’t know where to go from here. I've been with Torchwood since Uni, and the last few months I’ve spent all my time either running the hub or caring for Lisa. I don’t know what I have now that those are gone.”

  


“You don’t want to be here anymore?” Jack asked sadly.

  


“Is that? Sorry, is that even an option?” Ianto asked, clearly confused. “Sir, how could you ever trust me again? After everything I did.”

  


“I would like for you to become a true member of this team, Ianto. But it has to be something you want, too. And it would come with a few conditions.” Jack pressed on as Ianto arched an eyebrow in question. “Four weeks suspension. Mandatory counseling with a Unit approved shrink. And when you come back, you really become a part of this team. No more hiding.”

  


Ianto was speechless. Jack was offering him so much more than he deserved. He sat, blinking uncomprehendingly at Jack, unsure of what to say.

  


“Look, Ianto,” Jack said, “I should have checked in with you when I first hired you. You were one of what, 27 survivors that day? You'd been through something unspeakable, and I didn’t even bother to ask if you were okay. I was so quick to dismiss anything having to do with One, that I never stopped to see you as a fellow victim of One’s arrogance. You didn’t cause the ghost shifts and you didn’t deserve what happened. You deserved support, and a good leader would have made sure you got it. I'm not making the same mistake this time.”

  


“Thank you,” Ianto sobbed and leaned forward toward Jack. Jack stood and wrapped his arms around Ianto, holding him as he cried, eventually releasing the restraint from Ianto’s wrist, allowing him to wrap an arm around Jack’s waist.

  


It was going to be a long road to recovery, but Jack and Ianto were both hopeful that they would get there in the end.

  


  


  



End file.
